Charity Game Showcase: Ninja Combat

As a child, did you ever feel like games such as Final Fight or Double Dragon simply did not have enough shurikens? Did you crave wandering the streets of New York as a ninja hell bent on destruction? Well, I have the game for you, and it’s call Ninja Combat.

The story goes like this: You play as either of the twin ninjas Joe or Hayabusa (if they’re twins, why did their parents opt for such differing names?) in New York who are trying to fight their way into the dreaded Ninja Tower in the middle of town. One would think they would attempt this daring feat during the construction of Ninja Tower, which one could only assume would take a couple of years to complete, but one might not know everything there is to know about ninja tactics and patience. Why are we trying to get into Ninja Tower? To kill the Shadow Family, of course. And why are we trying to kill the Shadow Family? Because. That’s why.

Like Final Fight or Double Dragon, gameplay centers around walking and killing anything that happens to arrive on the scene. It’s all fairly standard side-scrolling, beat-em-up fair. You have no remorse for the wake of blood and bodies that you will leave behind. It’s really best not to think about the families a lot of those people would leave behind. Just focus on the fact that you can blow up oil drums! KAPOW!

According to the internet (a trusted source of all information), Ninja Combat is incredibly difficult and a lot of people complain about just that. We will have to make sure that we don’t completely and utterly suck at mashing buttons. That is the goal.

Ninja Combat was released in 1991 on the Neo Geo. You might remember the Neo Geo from arcades in the 90s where everyone simply played Samurai Showdown even though there were several other games in the box. We’ll have to slap some quarters down on the Wii for nostalgia’s sake.